Robin Schone (2 page)

Gabriel prepared for the next bid.

Watching.

Waiting.

Remembering...

. . . Reading the name Gabriel for the first time, printed by Michael while they waited for day to turn into

night.

... Writing his first word,
Michael,
practicing the script in-between the women who purchased a

dark-haired boy and the men who purchased him.

Wondering...

. .. When the need for sex would die and he would stop throbbing with what he could never have.

. . .
Why he could not forget a woman’s benediction: that he find a woman to give him pleasure.
To

mak e up for everything he endured.

The waiting ended with a flurry of motion.

Scooting back his Honduras mahogany chair, the German baron rose to claim his prize.

“I will give you five hundred pounds.”

Strathgar halted mid-stand.

The gray-haired man had bid.

Gabriel’s gaze glanced off the back of the gray-haired man, leaped over the blond-haired woman who sat

across from him, and settled on the man at the table behind them.

The back of his hair was so black that it glinted with blue highlights.

Gabriel did not need to see his irises to know their color: he saw them every time he closed his eyes to

sleep.

Suddenly the saloon came alive with masculine speculation and feminine spite.

A bid for five hundred pounds had been placed on the cloaked woman. Every male patron determined to

have her.

Jangled voices called out in rapid succession: “Five hundred twenty-five pounds.” “Five hundred

seventy-five pounds.” “Six hundred pounds.” “Six hundred fifty pounds.” “Seven hundred pounds ...”

An internal snick cut through the uproar, a door opening. Light slashed the darkness, the end

approaching.

One man halted two feet behind him; from twenty feet below him, Michael pinned his gaze.

“One thousand pounds,” scraped across Gabriel’s too tightly drawn skin.

It came from the second man.

Stunned incredulity washed over the saloon.

Only two whores had ever commanded that high a fee. Michel des Anges—Michael of the Angels, a

man named for his ability to bring women to
orgasm—and the man who for the last twenty-seven years had

been known only as Gabriel.

Gabriel, the whore.

Gabriel, the proprietor.

Gabriel, the untouchable angel.

Sputtering candlelight dimmed the comprehension that flowed across Michael’s face: he realized that the

second man had twice bid.

But did he recognize his voice? Gabriel wondered.

He aimed the Adams revolver at hair that was so black it glinted blue.

Would Michael recognize the second man’s features after a bullet entered the back of his head and

exited through his face?

“Monsieur.” The man behind Gabriel did not step closer— Gaston had been in Gabriel’s employ too long

to make that mistake. “Monsieur, he has come, just as you said he would.”

Everyone who worked for Gabriel knew to expect the second man. It was why he had rebuilt the House

of Gabriel, to lure him with sex ... murder.

Michael.

Gabriel.

But they didn’t know what he looked like.

They didn’t know what he smelled like.

They couldn’t feel him, as Gabriel felt him, a cancer that devoured hope and despair, love and hatred.

“How do you know that he is here, Gaston?” he asked neutrally, pistol unwavering.

“He wrote
un message
for you, monsieur.”

Gaston spoke with a native French accent.

Michael spoke French like a Frenchman, yet he was English.

Gabriel spoke English like an Englishman, yet he was French.

He did not know from what country the second man came. Gabriel had killed the only man who could tell

him.

It did not matter. It was not necessary to know a man’s nationality in order to kill him.

Gabriel squeezed the trigger . ..

The gray-haired man suddenly stood up, body shielding the second man. He assisted the blond-haired

woman to her feet.

She stood taller than the gray-haired man, elegant as only a successful prostitute can be. Diamonds

sparkled at her neck and ears. Fog and smoke twined about her hair—hair that was almost as fair as

Gabriel’s.

It dawned on Gabriel that he had seen the gray-haired man and blond-haired woman before. But where?

“When did he give this message to you, Gaston?” he asked shortly.

The second man had bribed his two doormen, else the woman would never have been allowed entrance.

The House of Gabriel did not cater to the destitute.

He wondered if the second man had also bribed his manager.

And knew it was all too possible.

Every man and woman inside his house had a price.

They would not be in Gabriel’s employment if they did not.

The gray-haired man and blond-haired woman unhurriedly wound through the candlelit tables. A trail of

gray smoke followed them.

The cloaked woman remained statue-still. Untouched by the danger that crackled around her.

“A waiter picked the message up off the floor,” Gaston said stiffly, hurt by Gabriel’s unspoken suspicion.

“It is written on
une serviette.”

An image of a waiter leaning over and straightening with a napkin in his hand flashed through Gabriel’s

mind’s eye.

His flesh crawled with sudden apprehension.

The waiter had not been near the man with the blue-black hair.

He wanted to pull the trigger.

He wanted to kill the second man.

He wanted the cleansing finality of death.

Gabriel did not pull the trigger.

Instead, he watched the gray-haired man. He watched the blond-haired woman.

He watched the pair pause at the exit.

Behind Gabriel, Gaston tensely waited. Below Gabriel, the blond-haired woman gracefully turned, pale

silk gown swirling.

The gray-haired man stepped through the doorway.

The moment he disappeared from sight, Gabriel remembered who he was: he was a member of the

Hundred Guineas Club, an establishment that catered exclusively to homosexual men who assumed female

personas.

The blond-haired woman netted Gabriel’s gaze.

Recognition slammed through him.

They were not the eyes of a woman who stared up at him; they were the eyes of the second man.

Disguised as a prostitute instead of a patron.

A woman instead of a man.

Realization followed recognition.

The second man had not brought the cloaked woman to kill Michael, the dark-haired angel: he had

brought the cloaked woman for Gabriel, the fair-haired angel.

Smiling, the second man blew a taunting kiss and stepped back. Out of Gabriel reach.

Out of Gabriel’s house.

While Gabriel watched. Unable to stop him.

As he had been unable to stop him when chained in an attic while he taught Gabriel what the French

madam had not been able to.

Rage tightened his muscles.

He had set a trap, only to be trapped himself.

The second man would not kill Michael tonight, but he would kill. He would leave no one alive who could

identify him.

No one save the cloaked woman . . .
if
Gabriel took her.

“What does the note say?” Gabriel asked tautly.

“
Il
dite
...” Gaston cleared his throat. “It says: ‘Gabriel, I quote to you from Shakespeare, a man who no

doubt would have been inspired by both your beauty and your expertise: “All the world’s a stage, and all the

men and women merely players.”

‘You have set a delightful stage,
mon ange,
now I bring you a woman. A leading actress, if you will.

Laissez le jeu commencer’
“

Directly beneath Gabriel, Michael perused the saloon in search of the second man.

His innocence knotted Gabriel’s stomach.

Michael had only ever wanted a woman to love.

Gabriel had only ever wanted to be like Michael.

A man with passion; a man with innocence.

A man with a soul.

The cloaked woman stood alone, seemingly impervious to the furor she had created.

Fear feathered Gabriel’s flesh.

I bring you a woman,
reverberated inside his ears. It was followed by
Laissez le jeu commencer.

London streets were cramped with streetwalkers; women slept on the steps of poorhouses.

Yet the second man had chosen this woman.

She was a virgin. Or she was a whore.

She had been hired to kill Gabriel. Or she had been hired to be killed by Gabriel.

She was the last living link to the second man.

There was nothing Gabriel wouldn’t do to catch him.

And he knew it.

“I bid two thousand pounds for the woman,” rang out over the volley of noise below him.

The voice belonged to Gabriel.

He felt the impact of two hundred pairs of eyes.

Gabriel had not been with a woman in fourteen years, eight months, two weeks and six days.

The patrons knew it.

The prostitutes knew it.

The man who would save him knew it.

The man who would kill two angels knew it.

The woman’s face was shrouded in darkness.

Gabriel did not know what she knew.
Yet.

But he would.

Before the night was over, he would know everything there was to know about her.

He hoped, for her sake, that she was an assassin.

It would be far better for her if she were.

If Gabriel did not kill her, the second man would. It would be a far, far worse death than that which

Gabriel would deliver.

Laissez le jeu commencer.
Let the play begin.

Passion. Victoria gazed into silver eyes and understood why respectable men and women came to the

House of Gabriel.

They came to experience passion.

She had come to escape it.

“You may leave us, Gaston.”

The silky masculine voice pierced fog. Smoke. Wool. Flesh.
Bones.

A whisper grated across Victoria’s skin, the sound of a door closing. Sealing her inside a library instead

of the bedchamber she had expected.

It would not alter the outcome of the night.

Victoria knew that a man did not need a bed in order to couple with a woman: a doorway or an alley

often sufficed.

Above her, an electric chandelier pummeled her with light; in front of her, a silver-veined, black

marble-topped desk and a pale blue leather Queen Anne chair stood between her and the blond-haired man.

Her hood blocked her peripheral vision; it did not blind her to the danger that crackled around her.

It did not shield her from the fact that she had sold her body to the highest bidder.

He did not move, this man who had purchased her virginity, a Greek statue garbed in a tailored, black-silk

dress coat and a white waistcoat, pale blond hair shining like spun silver.

A sharp pang stabbed through her chest.

He was so beautiful it hurt her to look at him.

Victoria tore her gaze away from his, heart racing, thoughts chasing.

She had seen him before: the high cheekbones, the sculpted mouth, eyes that saw through the most basic

desire . . .

His left hand rested palm down on top of the black marble, pale fingers long, slender, short nails buffed to

a polished sheen. A mound of white silk abutted his little finger.

Victoria had no illusions about what men did to women. The hand that caressed them could also hurt

them. Disfigure them.

Kill them.

Her gaze snapped upward.

Silver eyes were waiting for hers.

Victoria’s stomach clenched.

From hunger, she told herself.

And knew that she lied.

She was afraid.

But she could not afford to be afraid.

“You bid two thousand pounds for my virginity,” she said bluntly.

“I bid two thousand pounds,” he agreed neutrally, silver eyes inscrutable.

But a woman’s virginity is not worth two thousand pounds,
Victoria wanted to cry.

She did not.

“I am not experienced in these matters.” She gripped her knitted wool reticule; her ring finger slipped

through a loose purl. “How is it that you intend to pay me?”

“That is entirely up to you, mademoiselle.”

Mademoiselle.

The waiter who had brought her to the man behind the black-marble-topped desk had called her

mademoiselle. He had spoken with an unmistakable French accent.

The man who had bid one hundred and five pounds and then one thousand pounds had also called her

mademoiselle. He had spoken with an unmistakable English accent.

Like this man.

A compulsive need to know the nationality of the man who would take her virginity overcame her.

Victoria swallowed it.

Prostitutes did not question their patrons. And by her actions this night, she’d left the rank of unemployed

governess and become a prostitute.

Deliberately, she reached up and shoved back her hood.

Electricity bolted through the air.

Victoria froze, hands suspended.

The man’s little finger that had bridged the mounded white silk was now buried underneath it.

She had not seen him move, but he had.

“Take off your cloak.”

The order was cold, clipped.

Her gaze shot upward.

His face and eyes were devoid of desire.

The last six months had taught Victoria that men did not need to desire a woman in order to possess her.